Carette of Sark eBook

The girls hid their faces and sank sobbing into the
heather. The men cursed Torode volubly, and regretted
that he had not gone with Black Boy.

And it was none but black looks that greeted him when,
after standing a moment, he came on across the Coupee
and joined the rest.

“It is a misfortune,” he said brusquely,
as he came among us.

“It is sheer murder and brutality,” said
Charles Vaudin roughly.

“Guyabble! It’s you that ought to
be down there, not yon poor brute,” said Guerin.

“Tuts then! A horse! I’ll make
him good to Hamon.”

“And, unless I’m mistaken, you promised
him not to ride the Coupee,” I said angrily,
for I knew how George Hamon would feel about Black
Boy.

“Diable! I believe I did, but I forgot
all about it in seeing you others crawling across.
Will you lend me your horse to ride back, Carre?
Mademoiselle rides home with me.”

“Mademoiselle does not, and I won’t lend
you a hair of him.”

“That was the understanding. Mademoiselle
promised.”

“Well, she will break her promise,—­with
better reason than you had. I shall see her safely
home.”

“Right, Phil! Stick to that!” said
the others; and Torode looking round felt himself
in a very small minority, and turned sulkily and walked
back across the Coupee.

The pleasure of the day was broken. Black Boy’s
face and scream and fall were with us still, and presently
we all went cautiously back across the narrow way.
And no girl rode, but each one shuddered as she passed
the spot where the loose edge of the cliff was scored
with two deep grooves; and we others, looking down,
saw a tumbled black mass lying in the white surf among
the rocks.

CHAPTER XV

HOW I FELT THE GOLDEN SPUR

George Hamon was sorely put out at the loss of his
horse and by so cruel a death. In his anger he
laid on young Torode a punishment hard to bear.

For when the young man offered to pay for Black Boy,
Uncle George gave him the sharpest edge of his tongue
in rough Norman French, and turned him out of his
house, and would take nothing from him.

“You pledged me your word and you broke it,”
said he, “and you think to redeem it with money.
Get out of this and never speak to me again! We
are honest men in Sercq, and you—­you French
scum, you don’t know what honour means.”
And Torode was forced to go with the unpayable debt
about his neck, and the certain knowledge that all
Sercq thought with his angry creditor and ill of himself.
And to such a man that was bitterness itself.

During the ten days that followed Riding Day, my mind
was very busy settling, as it supposed, the future,—­mine
and Carette’s. For, whether she desired
me in hers or not, I had no doubts whatever as to what
I wanted myself. My only doubts were as to the
possibilities of winning such a prize.